


Jane Austen's Guide To Raising AI

by ineffablesheep



Series: This Is Not Jane Austen [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Afghanistan, Alex's mane, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Atypical Daemons, Daemon Prejudice, Daemons, Gen, I've forgotten how to tag its been so long, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Lives, MIT Era, Swearing, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony raising his AI children and their daemons and its sweet and only hurts a little, all very mild passing references, covers from MIt to post CACW, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23326090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablesheep/pseuds/ineffablesheep
Summary: “Okay, fine. We can come back to the name thing. My name is Tony, this is my daemon Alexander and,” fuck, it was worth a shot, “do you know where this lion cub came from? Did you see anyone come in here?”Pause, swivel, chirp.Daymin“A daemon – spelt D-A-E-M-O-N by the way – is basically a manifestation of you, like your soul, I guess. There’s no real science behind it, people just have animals that follow them around and are supposed to represent who they are on the deepest level, rah di rah di rah etc. So Alex is a manifestation of who I am.” The arm paused, looking between Tony and the lion next to him, then back to the cub. “No, the cub isn’t mine. That’s why I’m asking you where it came from.” The arm none-to-gently grabbed the cub’s scruff in its claw and held it up for Tony to see.DeaMonSomething deep in Tony’s aching brain clicked.“Wait, what?”
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Stark Robots
Series: This Is Not Jane Austen [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1391131
Comments: 28
Kudos: 328





	Jane Austen's Guide To Raising AI

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise, I live!
> 
> Its been a long while, I know, and I'm sorry. If you're still reading this series, I am going to finish it but for now here's 6.5k worth of Tony growing up and raising his daemon family. I hope you enjoy! :D
> 
> (This is a prequel to Pride And Prejudice, but will make sense without having read the rest of the series)  
> EDIT: The first part of the fic didn't copy through - I've added it in now so hopefully it makes more sense oops

Tony was woken by nuzzling and undignified squeaking. His head ached. Was he supposed to be able to feel his pulse in his eyeballs? What was Alex up to? The lion didn’t like waking up any more than Tony did so what was, god, how much had he had to drink last night? The nuzzling got more insistent before something small and furry was dropped on his face.

He grabbed the thing and sat up – bad idea – and tried to gather himself. It took an age to blink his eyes open against the burn of the lights and sleep dust. And it was sleep dust. Not dried tears, Stark men don’t- fuck, fuck off. The handful of fur was a lion cub. It was quiet, a bit small to have its eyes open but there they were, bright and alert already. Alexander sat next to the cot, staring at the cub with wide eyes and confused panic beginning to leak through. If it wouldn’t make the skull-splitting headache worse, Tony would have laughed. The lion looked like he was trying to hide in his own mane, _don’t shoot the messenger_ scrawled through the tense lines of his muscles. So, if the cub wasn’t Alexander, who knew jack-shit more than Tony about it, where and how and why the fuck was an endangered animal doing in his lab?

The lab was locked and secure, no one could get in unless Tony let them and the only one with a key was Rhodes. The older student was also the last person Tony would expect to pull a stunt like this, shit he probably couldn’t even manage it without help. The money, connections, morals, Rhodes didn’t have any of it. No, scratch that; Rhodey had the best moral compass of anyone Tony knew and if Jarvis liked the other student then Tony’s judgement must be right on this one. Tiberius and Sunset were proof of that. Not taking his eyes off the tiny cub he reached a hand down next to the cot and felt around for a bottle. Gin? That would explain a few things. Unfortunately – or fortunately if you asked Rhodey – the bottle was empty, and Tony let it fall to the ground next to Alexander with a clunk. Maybe he still had some aspirin in the first aid kit. That, a shower and clean clothes were priority one. You always needed the correct armour for the job and if the Deans got Howard got involved he’d need it.

It took a minute of convincing before Alexander would hold the furry problem so he could ever so slowly and carefully get up. Next time he’d stick to scotch, or maybe tequila. Or maybe he wouldn’t fuck up so badly Howard would come to campus to yell at him. Ha, right.

After a quick hunt Tony found the first aid kit and was just about to wash the aspirin down with cold coffee when something in by his workstation went _beep_. The pills and coffee nearly ended up across the room before Tony could wrestle his body out of its panic and he spun to face the noise. Really shouldn’t have done that, the lights blurred in his eyes and his head ached. He slipped one hand into Alexander’s mane to steady himself and discovered the lion was puffed up like a frightened tabby. It beeped again, this time following it up with a whistle.

It was his project, the one that pissed Howard off so much. It was still early in development but the idea was supposed to be a robot that had a rudimentary AI in it that could help him in the workshop. He could probably find a way to integrate it into a weapons system but that would require it to _work_ and so far it had as much life in it as Tony’s mother after a couple of her little pills. Another _beep_ came from the arm and the cub dangling from Alexander’s teeth chirped and wriggled in his hold. The arm angled to face the lion and the camera mounted in its claw whirred as it focused and then refocused as it turned to face Tony again.

Keeping his movements slow to appease the hangover, Tony placed the cup of coffee on the nearest empty spot of desk he could find and made his way over to his computer. Alexander kept close by his side, unwilling to leave his own curiosity unsated or Tony at the mercy of whatever happened next. Eyes still on the clawed arm mounted next to the bulky screen, Tony pulled out his rolling stool and sat and _was the arm tracking his movement?_ Something tugged upwards in his chest that had nothing to do with last night’s drinking and he gave the mouse a wiggle to wake the computer from its standby. The arm followed his hand. On Tony’s other side, Alex propped his front paws on the desk and let the cub fall on its surface with a gentle bump. The tiny thing squawked in complaint before turning its tail on the older lion and wobbling over to the distracted robot.

On screen, code scrolled past faster than Tony could read and process. The sheer volume of it added to the headache and left his eyes spinning. Eventually, his brain kicked in and he pulled it up in a second window while he left the running code to its own devices. He’d been working on this code for months and last night he’d absolutely butchered it. His notes, the logical structure, just gone. In its place was a sprawling mess that could almost pass for nonsense if you didn’t know what you were trying to look for. Tony reached a hand out and picked the cub up as he tried and failed to find the closing bracket to a string of code that shouldn’t work without it. The cub licked at Tony’s fingers before it accidentally bit its own tongue and squeaked. Eyes still glued to the screen, Tony ran a hand down the cub’s tiny body to soothe it. The arm let out a soft _beep_ of its own and tried to reach across for the cub and it sounded, did it sound _curious?_

Well, one way to find out.

“Do you have a name?” Tony sat and watched as the code in front of him received the question, processed it, then returned a question mark on screen. “A name,” Tony repeated, “designation? Identifier?”

The arm paused, as did the on-screen code, then it swivelled to find and offer Tony an empty bottle of alcohol. In the process, it managed to accidentally knock over the framed picture of Edwin Jarvis that Tony kept next to his workstation. Tony grabbed the frame before the arm could try and ‘help’ pick it up and tucked it in a desk drawer. The arm dropped the bottle with a sad _beep._

“No, you dummy, that’s a bottle. What’s your _name_?”

And that right there was Tony’s first mistake when raising his new AI. The code zipped up the screen faster than he could read and when it stopped, the program had printed a response, pride of place. The arm chirped.

“DumbEE. No, that’s not what I meant, I didn’t say that was your name. I want to know what _you_ call _yourself_. That was just an insult.” A flurry of code and the AI returned another question mark.

“Just tell me your name dammit.” A pause, a whir and more code. The arm offered up the same empty bottle as before.

_DUmBeE_

Next to him, Alexander huffed and rolled his eyes. The cub squirmed in Tony’s hold so he placed it on the desk within the arm’s reach. It toddled over to his project and cuddled close, a small, squeaky purr escaping it. “Okay, fine. We can come back to the name thing. My name is Tony, this is my daemon Alexander and,” fuck, it was worth a shot, “do you know where this lion cub came from? Did you see anyone come in here?”

Pause, swivel, _chirp._

_Daymin_

“A daemon – spelt D-A-E-M-O-N by the way – is basically a manifestation of you, like your soul, I guess. There’s no real science behind it, people just have animals that follow them around and are supposed to represent who they are on the deepest level, rah di rah di rah etc. So Alex is a manifestation of who I am.” The arm paused, looking between Tony and the lion next to him, then back to the cub. “No, the cub isn’t mine. That’s why I’m asking you where it came from.”

The arm none-to-gently grabbed the cub’s scruff in its claw and held it up for Tony to see.

_DeaMon_

Something deep in Tony’s aching brain clicked.

“Wait, _what?”_

\---------

Raising an AI, Tony decided, was a lot more difficult than he’d expected. The AI had refused to let go of that initial insult but had accepted a change of spelling and thus Dum-E was officially born. To celebrate, Tony had built a wheeled ‘body’ for the arm. He then let the AI loose in the larger lab that Rhodey was forced to share with some boring fuckwit. Rhodey was less than impressed to begin with; he’d nearly lost some delicate prototypes to the robot’s curiosity. It wasn’t like Dum-E really listened to Tony or understood the world around him. His friend had suggested that maybe he should’ve taught the excitable bot these things _before_ giving him mobility, but Tony was adamant he’d made the right decision. You had to run before you could walk, he’d told Rhodey, and Dum-E had taken that to heart and promptly run over their feet.

Once he’d finally convinced the older student that he wasn’t playing a very elaborate prank on him, Rhodey had come to accept Dum-E’s daemon with very little fanfare. The cub’s name was still an unknown while Dum-E learnt how to spell but the pair made up for their illiteracy by creating chaos in the lab whenever they got bored. Which was more often than Tony thought could be possible. To give Alexander some respite, he would set the pair loose in Rhodey’s lab and wait for him and his grizzly bear, Connie, to get annoyed. Because Connie, all eight feet and 380 pounds of her would wrap the pair in her arms and simply smother them down till they got the hint and had a nap.

Tony would forever deny that Rhodey and Connie did the same thing to Alexander and himself. He’d also deny that it worked wonders.

\---------

Dum-E was a good first attempt, but U was _proof_ that he could create an independent being purely from code. It had taken another semester to code his second child, and a good portion of that had been trying to decipher Dum-E’s code to try and figure out what made him sentient and what made him _Dum-E._ He didn’t dare try and tidy the code least he rendered his bot ‘dead’ so it was slow going. Plus, just when he was making progress, someone got wind of the lion in Tony’s lab and the resulting investigation nearly got Tony suspended before Howard stepped in.

The old man had been pissed about having to take time from his own business and expeditions to say the least. It meant a week of his time used up in meetings with the faculty as his son tried to prove that he hadn’t stolen or bought an endangered wild animal, interspersed with ramblings about a dumb robot he’d built. With enough proof and a crisp cheque Tony was to remain at MIT and continue his studies and the lion cub would be left in his care.

At the end of the week, when the bruises were finally healing and Howard was just about to leave, one of the deans asked Tony what he was working on.

“Oh, artificial intelligence. _I told you_ , Tychicus is Dum-E’s daemon.”

Personally, Tony thought that it was a stretch to call Dum-E intelligent. He had no spatial awareness and had nearly taken Tony’s eye out trying to hand him things so often that he was relegated to fire extinguisher duty till he could figure out how distances worked. Howard and the faculty however had dam near lost their minds. Half thought he was lying about the bot’s intelligence and the lion cub was part of a ploy to fool them. The rest couldn’t believe that Dum-E was anything more than a basic AI, or that he was Tony’s own work. I’ll prove it, Tony told them, and at the end of the semester U went online in front of the entire faculty.

U was quieter than his brother, learnt a little faster and had better memory but Tony put that down to U being created while sober. Well, more sober. His youngest didn’t have the quirks that likely came from that night of black-out drinking but he had his own personality, as subtle as it was.

Of course, the faculty were more interested in the code on-screen and the lion cub that found its way into existence with a blur in the air than U’s personality. It took a few hours, stuck in a lab chatting with U and introducing him to the world before the ball of fluff appeared and was quickly scooped up by the bot and held aloft for all to see. The gathered audience lost it.

Regardless, once he’d finally proved beyond doubt that his boots and cubs were for realsies, Howard and the papers pounced. Dum-E and Tony were all over the front pages – completely ignoring U much to Tony’s frustration. The cubs, too small to keep up with Alexander, were often kept safely in Tony’s backpack or by the scruff in Alex’s jaws. Maybe this was where things went wrong because wires got crossed _somewhere_. Across the front page of every tabloid Tychicus and Epsilon were declared as _Tony’s_ daemons.

\---------

Edwin Jarvis died two months before Tony’s 19th birthday and Just A Rather Very Intelligent System went online three months after that. This code was the simplest yet, the barest spark of life that would hopefully, so hopefully one day maybe even be like the real Jarvis. Could be a person in his own right. Could be there when Tony came home from another shit day. He loved his bots but they weren’t _Jarvis._ Uncle Obie had been locked out of the lab at least a week ago based on the number of coffee cups littering the bench and the hum of the computer screen was starting to make Tony’s eyes burn. Or was that the light? Fuck it, it didn’t fuck matter cause even if this worked Jarvis wasn’t here to see it or listen to Tony ramble or dangle string for the cubs—Nope stop it. Starks are made of iron.

JARVIS was born in a dark, messy lab that smelt of tears and sweat and coffee at 7:28am. His daemon was no bigger than a handful and dwarfed by Alex’s paws; yet his eyes were open and already assessing the world. On the screen, texted picked its way out carefully.

_Good morning, sir. Would you please ask Alexander to stop licking Katran? It tickles._

It was quiet and dark and only Jarvis and Alexander were there to see Tony hug the monitor as his shoulders shook.

\---------

Butterfingers and Felix were born when Tony was twenty-two, a year after he’d officially taken the helm of Howard’s business. The board had rejected yet another design for a laptop and Obie was breathing down his neck for more weapons. Like yeah, he got it okay. Stark Industries was a weapons developer and if he wanted to keep a hold of the reigns he had to cater to the board and the existing contracts and he couldn’t get more money for new projects without investors and who invested in robots or screens that you could touch? Sometimes it was easier to just give them what they wanted, get them to back the hell off for a while. Then he could invent what he wanted and drink to his heart’s content without the interruptions. And if the whisky didn’t cut it? There was always coke and models and more booze at the tips of his fingers. He was Tony Stark; he had four daemons and everyone thought he did it anyway.

Uncle Obie was the one who found him the next morning. Tony was passed out on the workshop floor in sweatpants and the $120 shirt from yesterday’s meeting, so his business partner was greeted and escorted out by a very cranky Alex. In the corner of the shop, the newest addition to the family was taking in her surroundings as Jarvis watched over them. Dum-E was very excited to show off his fire extinguisher and turned to grab it, only to be poked by someone. The _tink_ had the older bot spinning around with a questioning _beep?_ His little sister pointed at U, who was busy investigating the contents of the fridge. What was more important, fire extinguisher or getting U back? Nope, easy choice. He would get back at U by letting new sister hold the extinguisher – a rare treat.

Which, as Jarvis explained later, was why Tony woke up covered in flame-suppressant foam. His newest bot had dropped the extinguisher and set the dam thing off, covering him head to toe. He wiped the foam off his face but before he could sit up Alexander dropped a blob of the stuff on his head. Tony yelped. There was a cub in the blob of foam, squeaking and wriggling, paws all over the show. The lion was as much of an arsehole as himself sometimes.

“Good morning, Sir. May I introduce your newest bot and her daemon, Felix? I advise that you don’t hand her anything breakable.”

\---------

“Tony, you have a board meeting in twenty minutes and you need to be there, you promised after last time.” Hm? What? Oh, Pepper was here, why would she be here at… oh, seven am, right. “After that R&D wants to speak to you about their budget and you’ll need to sign off on some things for the lawyers before three. Oh, and we might need to do address the animal rights groups, they’re starting to cause problems again.” Tony put his tools down and Alexander huffed. Even at this hour his PA was immaculately put together and organised beyond humanly possible. But she’d be even better if she’d go away. Then he could get back to actual work.

“Yes Pep.”

“Now Tony.”

“Of course, Pep.”

“Good. Now don’t keep Happy waiting.” Pepper turned to leave but her wolverine, Ann, kept her eyes on Tony until he was up from his seat and moving. Then she too was gone and both Tony and Alex sighed in relief. The woman was the best dam PA he’d ever had, and the wolverine that kept close to her side was well deserved. Hell, if he didn’t already have Happy as his Forehead of Security he’d consider employing her as a bodyguard.

“Jarvis buddy? She gone yet?”

“Ms Potts has hopped in the car and is leaving the property as we speak. May I suggest following her instructions-”

“Nope, not happening.” The cubs were playing with a length of rope and getting them organised and out the door was a mission and a half. Happy would wait, Tony would just blame his tardiness on the cubs, and everyone would roll their eyes and he’d ignore the board and drop a new bit of tech on them and leave Pepper to wrangle them into accepting it. Sorted.

“Pull up the specs for the new Starkphone Jay, AC/DC on max. We’ve got work to do!”

\---------

Tony stood in the desert, surrounded by his own weapons. The leader was still spouting off demands and the glasses guy was still translating but Tony wasn’t really listening. It didn’t matter. Not the hunger, not the barrel of water, not the other terrorists and their daemons milling around, not the fucking magnet _in his chest_. None of it did.

The sun forced him to squint till he could barely see his legacy in front of him. He didn’t need to speak the language to hear the anticipatory delight. It subdued the usual chaotic energy that carried Tony through a workshop binge and sharpened it with desert sand. At least the cubs were safe at home.

“And when you’re done, he will set you free.”

“No he won’t.” Tony shook the man’s hand with a smile that wouldn’t have fooled even Justin Hammer.

“No,” Glasses conceded, “he won’t.”

As the men herded him and Glasses back into the mouth of the cave, numbers began running through his head. If they had enough of his stock, and if he could wrangle Glasses into helping him, maybe. Then he could try and fix his mistakes. He ran his fingers through Alexander’s mane and a clump of hair came free in his hand.

\---------

Obie must have brought the paper along with the pizza that last visit because Tony couldn’t think of anyone else who would bring one into his home. It was the morning paper published the day after his initial press conference. Skipping the front page, he skimmed it through just for the novelty before he chucked it in the direction of the stairs. Dum-E and Butterfingers would enjoy shredding the dam thing. The empty pizza box was still on the table along with a couple of long feathers. Amy’s manners were about as good as his uncle’s. The bald eagle must be moulting again, or preening, whatever birds did to groom themselves.

Pizza box filled with feathers under one arm, he grabbed the stupid newspaper and headed down to his lab. Didn’t matter that the board was having a tantrum, he had work to do. Just how efficient _could_ he make solar panels anyway?

\---------

If anyone had asked, he probably would have lied. Scratch that, he absolutely would have lied. But, if no one was able to ask him, then he wouldn’t have to. Which meant he was only lying to himself when he said he was coping and that wasn’t as bad as lying to Pep or Rhodey.

Jarvis wasn’t impressed with this logic.

Neither was Alexander – was he even Alexander anymore? His lion- lioness, fuck it, his daemon had settled on Tony’s favourite sofa and was refusing to move. In his ever-watchful care, Jarvis had compiled a list of potential therapists for Tony to talk to. But Tony was fine, he was coping. Destroying his old weapons had been put on hold until he’d cleaned house of anyone linked to Ob- Stane and fuck there was a worrying number of vacancies to fill. Jarvis and Pepper could handle most of that though. There was something to be said for having an AI like Jarvis. In the meantime, he’d wrangle the board (with Pepper’s help of course) back into shape and get his company back on the straight and narrow. Stock value was starting to even out and hopefully the next few ideas he’d take to a meeting would finally get things up and moving again.

His daemon just glared. Katran poked his head out of the cub-pile in the corner and glared at Tony too. Pete’s sake.

“Don’t you start too. Just because Alexander is doing it doesn’t mean you should copy him. I mean her. Fuck.” Tony ran a hand through his hair. His soul blinked at him with those lazy yellow eyes, too tired to maintain the glare. They were both tired even if he didn’t want to admit it. Alexander wriggled and hitched a back leg up to scratch at his neck where his mane was missing. He’d left the last of it spread across the desert in Afghanistan and was still adjusting a week later. Even a cold breeze had the lion hunkered down and shivering as it teased across his relatively hairless neck and chest.

Alexander was still trying to scratch though. His movements were awkward; either scratching the air where hair used to be or, more than once, overcompensating and smacking himself in the head. After a minute the lion gave up and settled down with a huff but he was still uncomfortable. Maybe he wasn’t coping.

It took a minute to find where the pet brush had gone, some of that time set aside to breathe as his body reminded him that hey, you’re missing a chunk of sternum and took an absolute beating. He wasn’t panting by the time he returned to the sofa with the brush in hand so that counted as progress. His daemon looked up from where his head rested on his paws and something settled heavy in his chest, just behind the reactor. Silently, he nudged Alexander until he could squeeze onto the sofa with the lion’s head on his lap. They let the silence stretch for a minute, just enjoying the other’s presence. It had been a long time since it was just the two of them. The bots and the cubs had been quiet lately, rushing to say hello every time he walked into the shop but otherwise they stayed huddled together in their basket. Maybe Tony wasn’t the only one not coping.

He had to start somewhere. Drawing as much air into his lungs as he possibly could, he let it out in a rush.

“Want me to help with this?” He asked quietly, smoothing a hand over the freshly exposed neck. Alexander huffed, eyes anywhere but Tony. Carefully, Tony started working his way backwards from Alexander’s forehead. Hair had grown in as his mane fell out, but there was still plenty of new growth coming through even now and it itched something fierce, Tony could tell. He followed the grain of the short, tawny hair.

“I don’t know what to call you anymore.” The words slipped out but it’s too much effort to try take them back. Besides, they’d have to talk about _this_ as some point, Tony would be asked about _this_ for the next month, might as well bite the bullet. “I mean, you were Alexander, a male lion and you’re still Alexander in who you are but you’re female now. Do you want to be Alexandra? We could call you Alex, that’s ambiguous. Keep everyone on their toes, start a new trend. How does sex even work for daemons? You’re a soul, you’re a manifestation of _me_. I’m still male, last I checked.” The lion huffed in amusement before sneezing, a loose hair irritating his nose. Tony ran a hand over the large muzzle, soothing the irritation and giving the lion’s chin a scratch. He held each ear out the way as he brushed around them.

“There you go. Anyway, why did you change sex if I didn’t? Or change at all?” He’d heard stories of daemon’s changing species of course, all proven to be myths and legends at best. Not that some change was impossible. It just took significant trauma. Even then the eyes were the main thing affected, a few shades off what they should have been, a coat’s pattern might alter slightly. None of Jarvis’s research had brought up daemons changing sex – not with reasonable proof at least.

If it was trauma, why hadn’t the hair loss started immediately after the Humvee ambush or during the waterboarding? No, it had started after that, when he’d ‘agreed’ to make a Jericho for them. Tony stretched and clicked his back, tugged Alexander’s front leg up so he could reach his belly and continued brushing. He couldn’t do more of his head until he turned over and he wouldn’t be able to look at him if he did. Without his mane, his daemon looked so small and tired.

“Have you considered the possibility that Alexander changed sex due to the traumatic events you experienced and a shift in your world view? Lions and lionesses play very different roles within a pride, and-”

“Not now Jay.” A dozen strokes and he would have had to stop to clean hair from the brush by now, but this is after and thinking of before is not coping.

“Listen. You want to be Alexand _er_ , Alexand _ra_ , or Alex, that’s your call. You wanna be a he or she, that’s your call too. You pick and let me know.”

He’s not coping, and he should probably call one of Jay’s therapists. Stark men are made of iron and trust issues and that means no feelings. Howard taught him that one fast. But Alexander was there for those lessons and knows what Tony’s trying to say without saying. Each brush stroke is an apology for the fact that _Tony_ changed so much his soul changed and left his daemon in this confused state. Alexander wouldn’t have lost his mane and be in a body that’s not quite his if it wasn’t for _Tony’s_ actions.

\---------

It took a few days for Tony to find it. One of the bots, he doesn’t know which, had collected the remnants of Alexander’s mane from the brush and left it loosely piled on a workbench. He’d still had a pinch left by the time Rhodey found them in the desert, and he’d only lost those final strands when he was finally down in the workshop again. Tony threaded the mane through a bolt and had Jarvis crush it until it was flattened, and the hair pinched tight in its grip. He could feel eyes on him as he tucked it away in the safe next to blueprints that will never and shouldn’t have ever seen light. Tony doesn’t do sentiment and he doesn’t do therapy and he’s only kind of lying to his friends if you count omission. What he does is _learn_ and sometimes that requires tangible evidence.

\----------

It took a solid three weeks for the news cycle to stop mentioning the mane thing in their articles about him, and another three for the tabloids to find something bigger and better for the front page. In the meantime, they fucking milked it for all they could.

“’ _Stark Lost More Than His Marbles?’_ ; _‘What’s New, Pussy Cat?’_ ; ‘ _Stark Playboy No More!’_ Honestly, if you’re gonna tell the world I got neutered by terrorists, at least be clever about it.” Tony looked over from his holograms to the other side of his bed, where Alexandra was basking in the morning sun. She blinked and yawned before huffing loudly and rolling over onto him. She was careful not to wind him but made sure her weight was felt, setting her head on his stomach. He ran a hand over her head and scratched the short fur behind her ear.

“Good girl, now stay quiet and we can both have a sleep-in before the little nightmares wake up.”

\---------

Friday went online as soon as Tony could get down to the server room without being side eyed by one of the others. Things were tense between him and the rest of the team for a while, the events at the Potomac driving a wedge between Rogers, Romanoff and himself. This just made everything worse. Instead of the free-reign Jarvis had, Tony had been forced to limit the growth of his youngest until further notice. Tony had tried to point out that Ultron and Friday – hell, all his kids – were completely different. Ultron had no daemon, and there was no way he should have come online the way he had. They’d been running tests to investigate the sceptre and he’d made the barest mention of the previously scrapped program in the sceptre’s presence. He’d never set out to build an AI let alone what Ultron had become. Bruce hadn’t said much. His fellow scientist had tucked himself into a corner and let the team direct everything at Tony, which, yeah, he got that.

Even now, knowing that the cubs were safe, with Friday in his ear, he couldn’t shake the awful feeling in his stomach. Racing down to the workshop to find Jarvis’s code mangled beyond recognition, Katran pale and barely breathing on the floor, the deep cold of space and Steve’s grip on him-

No, not that. Tony shook his head to try clear the image but the cold stayed, curled around his spine. Jarvis was still on his case about therapy, _is_ still on his case… anyway. He was so lucky he hadn’t been mind-fucked by Maximoff; he’d hate to put Alexandra through that.

Friday’s gentle Irish voice brought him back to the present. He was nearly at the church that Ultron had claimed for himself and he was tired, everything hurt. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could head home, organise clean-up and get back to his kids.

\---------

It was six months before Friday’s daemon appeared. As slowly and surreptitiously as he could, he’d been removing the limitations he’d placed on her when she’d first been brought online and doing his best to raise her as though she was as free to learn as his other kids. It was hard on her, and on the cubs and the bots too. Dum-E wasn’t the brightest but he and Tychicus could count and there were three bots and two voices in the ceiling and only four cubs in the basket. The pair had taken to searching the lab in case Friday’s cub had gotten lost or stuck.

Tony passed out on the sofa in the workshop early one morning, and after a couple of nightmares was finally sleeping well. That was until something sharp tugged on his ear. He snaked a hand out from under the blanket and waved half-heartedly at the offender.

“Go ‘way Dum-E, ‘m sleeping,” he managed, but the culprit just pinched harder and gave another tug. Tony blinked his eyes open and turned to see the body of a cub next to his head. He grabbed for it, caught it on the second try, and held it to his chest to see who the culprit was. The cub was tiny, closer to the size of a domestic kitten than a lion cub and certainly not one he knew. Tony carefully ran a hand down her back, and she arched into it with a squeak. He couldn’t stop the grin from overwhelming him.

“What’s her name, Fri?”

“Dihaoine, and she’s very pleased to meet you.”

By this point, his own daemon had woken up. Alex stretched up from her spot on the floor and rested her head on Tony’s stomach. Before Tony could say anything, she’d licked the tiny cub’s fur the wrong way up her back. Tony laughed and smoothed the rumpled fur back into place. Dihaoine, precious tiny Dihaoine, turned around and patted the lioness on the nose with a tiny paw and a very unimpressed squeak. Tony laughed and tugged the cub back up to settle on his chest. As she curled up into a muffin-sized ball under his chin, the guilt that lurked around his heart relaxed its grip a little bit.

Friday got new updates that afternoon, and Tony didn’t cry when a still-weak Katran snuggled Dihaoine close when the cubs had their afternoon nap.

\---------

Tony didn’t go out of his way to pay attention to the gossip and rumours that surrounded him unless it involved his AIs’ cubs. Yesterday had been Dihaoine’s first time out in public and the news cycle had once again gone crazy over them to the point he’d decided to stay within the compound today. With a little help from Jarvis he avoided the Dream Team as he made his way through the enormous building, weaving his way through the hallways and poking his head around corners. Last week Pepper had introduced Harley to one of her favourite French movies to give the teen some exposure to something not STEM related and the theme song had been stuck in his head since. Fortunately, it made for good Mission Impossible-esque sneaking music. Or as sneaky as you can be when trailed by five excited lions.

They’d made an evening of it, Pepper, Harley, Rhodey, Happy, even the bots were allowed out of the lab and into the lounge to watch. It had been chaos with three of his kids zooming around and every spare surface had a Daemon curled up on it. Rhodey and Happy had made popcorn and Jarvis wrote subtitles for the non-French speakers and they had a fucking good time.

The goal was the rooftop gardens, a little piece of the grassy plains their animal counterparts lived in. Tony had done his best to keep it a secret when he built the compound, even before Ultron and things went to shit. Now, his brightest two guarded it against Rogers and his lot with a passion.

“Sir, I must warn you before you arrive that Sargent Barnes has taken refuge there again this morning.” Okay, guarded it with an exception for Barnes.

Dammit. He didn’t begrudge Barnes for spending time in the garden, it was pretty dam nice up there and from J’s reports the man didn’t get much peace anywhere else in the compound. Tony had the lab to hide in, but Barnes had nowhere else to go. It seemed his middle child had developed a fondness for the former POW, and even Fri steered her vicious streak away from him.

He hadn’t seen the man in person since that sham of a reunion. Pepper and Happy had taken great delight in keeping Barnes as far from him as possible and ideally he’d like that streak to continue. But politics demanded he be seen in the Avengers’ general vicinity every so often and if the cubs didn’t burn off some energy now they’d wreak havoc in the lab so fuck it, he’d bite the bullet. They could be grown-ups and share the favourite toy. That snow leopard of his probably needed to stretch its legs too.

Tony watched from the doorway as Barnes lobbed the tennis balls into the grass and sat down. Was Barnes ignoring him? The supersoldier was always hypervigilant, you couldn’t get within ten metres of the man without him knowing you were there, if you were armed and what kind of threat you posed. Now the man was pulling apples out of his pocket. This was either a power move or a dick move, but this was Tony’s garden for his daemons. Fuck you very much, Barnes.

He didn’t manage to do much more than cough to get Barnes’ attention before his back hit the wall with a thump.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find a way to mention it but Harley's daemon is a honey badger named Cain, and Happy's is a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Twilliam. Also this was so dam hard to think of a title for so I had to give up the Austen theme for this one
> 
> So yeah, hi? Uni got on top of me and then work and Christmas and then for the first time in nearly a decade, I didn't want to sit down and write. And that scared the pants off of me, because amongst all the crap in my head and my usual apathy towards things, writing is one of the few hobbies that I consistently enjoy. Most of this was written last year and was finished up today so its not my best work but I finally got the itch to put words together again and fuck it feels good! I'm safe and well, and I hope this brings you some joy in this crazy world that we're living through.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always treasured,  
> Love, Sheep


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